Alpha And Omega.
Posting #50.
“Eh, Nat Pinkerton,
America…
And I’ll climb up, and then
what?”
M. Bulgakov. White
Guard.
Continuing
our discussion of the confrontation between Nikolka Turbin and the Neronic
yardman in Bulgakov’s first novel White
Guard, Bulgakov calls this yardman “Neron”
on account of N. G. Rubinstein’s opera Neron,
with its famous Epithalamia, while alluding to Shervinsky’s
prototype being M. Yu. Lermontov, as Rubinstein has another famous opera Demon, after Lermontov. And, of course,
Shervinsky in the novel sings the Epithalamia,
but not only that. Appearing to Elena in a dream, Shervinsky tells her: “I am Demon… and I am singing to you…”
Apparently, in association with Rubinstein’s opera Neron, Bulgakov is alluding to Rubinstein’s opera Demon.
Having
so much fun with the fake story of the Tsar fleeing from Russia to Europe via
Asia, M. A. Bulgakov does not stop there, but continues the same theme in Master and Margarita, where he describes
a game of chess between Woland and Kot Begemot, whose prototype is M. Yu. Lermontov.
[See my chapter Kot Begemot and other
chapters.]
With
the help of this chess game, it becomes perfectly clear that the whole verbal
escapade of L. Yu. Shervinsky amounts to pure sarcasm. Lermontov was never a
monarchist. Amazingly it never prevented Gumilev from becoming a “devout
monarchist,” for he valued Lermontov’s poetry and prose very highly, and even
became a World War I volunteer on account of Lermontov.
Gumilev
also considered the highest rank of a poet to be that of the “warrior-clerk.”
At the same time he considered the Russian poet N. A. Nekrasov, and many
others, “merchant-clerks.”
That’s
probably why Bulgakov introduces Shervinsky’s discourse with his story about
saving the Russian Emperor, as people very much wanted to believe in it, even
though they knew that the whole family of Nicholas II had been executed on the
order signed by Yakov Sverdlov.
***
Nikolka
was having a hard time. No matter where he was trying to direct his escape, all
gates had been locked by then. At last he found himself in another yard, and
although the gate was locked as well, it had a patterned see-through grid on
it. Nikolka climbed up on it, got over it, and found himself on a trafficked
street…
I
was very lucky to have ordered a book published by EKSMO: Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. Diaries. Reminiscences. Letters. I
read through it studiously, writing down notes as I was reading it into a
special notebook.
In
connection with the scene of Nikolka’s hostile encounter with the yardman, in White Guard, it reminded me that in a
letter to his wife, dated 28 June 1834, Pushkin writes about his problems with
a yardman. –
“...Incidentally, about our house… The other day, I am returning
home at night and find the doors locked. I knock and I knock; I ring and ring
the doorbell. At last I see the yardman coming. And I had told him several
times already never to lock up the house until I come back. Being angry with
him, I gave him paternal instruction. [He probably boxed his ears.]”
It
turns out that Pushkin’s neighbor in his yard had ordered the yardman not to
obey Pushkin, but to keep the doors locked starting at 10pm, lest robbers steal
the ladder.
Pushkin
decides to rent out the apartment, but writes to his wife that his war with the
yardman has not stopped. –
“As recently as yesterday I was forced to mess with him. [Did he
box the yardman’s ears again?] I feel sorry for him, but what can I do? I am
stubborn and want to outargue the whole house, including the leeches. [sic!]”
(It
seems that all Alexanders are stubborn, starting with Alexander Nevsky, in
whose honor my husband was named.)
As
for the “red-haired yardman” in the 11th chapter of Bulgakov’s novel
White Guard, although Bulgakov calls
him “Neron,” I am sure that the sly Mikhail Afanasievich takes this from
another letter written by Pushkin, dated 21 October 1833. In this letter
Pushkin is asking his wife about their children:
“So how is my toothless
Puskina? [Pushkin is referring to his little daughter Masha.] How about those
teeth! And what about Sashka the read-head [sic!]? [Pushkin’s little son.] Who
has he taken after, I wonder? I never expected this from him. Kissing and
crossing [the toothless] Mashka, Sashka the Redhead, and you [Pushkin’s wife
Natalia Goncharova]. Lord be with you.”
As
for “stealing the ladder,” because of
which concern the doors of the house had to be locked at 10pm, this is where
Bulgakov sells us the store. There is a moment in chapter 11 of White Guard when Nikolka finds himself
in front of an iron wall, an apparent dead end. Suddenly, he sees a lightweight
black ladder reaching to the roof of the four-story building. –
“Should I climb up? – he
thought, and stupidly remembered a colorful picture of Nat Pinkerton in a
yellow jacket, wearing a red mask on his face and climbing up exactly the same
kind of ladder. – Eh, Nat Pinkerton,
America…And I’ll climb up, and then what? Sitting on the roof like an idiot,
while the yardman calls Petlura’s men. This Neron will sell me out. I’ve broken
his teeth, he will never forgive that.”
With
this foray into “Nat Pinkerton,” Bulgakov offers a puzzle to the researcher. What
motivated him to do it?
[Allan
Pinkerton (1819-1884) was a Scottish-born American detective and spy best known
for his creation of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
After his death unscrupulous people started profiting off his name by writing and
publishing third-rate yet wildly popular adventure detective stories that
mushroomed into a cottage industry known in Russia as Pinkertonshchina.]
Bulgakov
obviously contrasts these cheap “dime novels,” as they used to be called in the
United States of America, with the best of the genre, as represented by the
real pathfinder of the serious detective story the British writer Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle with his indomitable hero sleuth Sherlock Holmes.
Bulgakov
addresses this master of detective fiction already in the Diary of a Young Physician and
also in his Notes on the Cuffs.
In
the episode with the ladder, which I discussed before, Bulgakov clearly raises
the question as to where he had taken the episode with the yardman, the gate,
and the ladder from. Bulgakov was fond of questions like this in his works, as
he believed that no one could solve his puzzles. What can be done? In Russia
all roads lead to Pushkin.
To
be continued…
***
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